Friday, October 23, 2009

Tesco Finest: 70% with Ginger

You'll notice that I uploaded my own (low quality) picture of this bar. That's because I found the Cairns Building for Business and Economics on campus here in Galway! Non-arts students always keep a clean facility, not to mention the highest internet speed known to Ireland. I got this bar at Tesco which is a huge European supermarket chain. This is their house-brand chocolate line, most all of which is single origin.

Tesco Finest: 70% with Ginger

Cocoa content: 70%

Notable ingredients: crystalized ginger

Origin: Dominican Republic

Imagine my surprise when I found, a couple of weeks ago, that Tesco carries its own line of single origin chocolate. Who else does that! I don't think even Whole Foods does, although of course their chocolate selection is far better than Tesco's when it comes to non-house brand. They had a few interesting options but I chose this one because I love ginger and I haven't had any in a while.

This is really the bottom of the barrel when it comes to ginger chocolates. I mean, surely it's not, but it doesn't even approach the level of other ginger bars I've tasted. On this blog so far we've seen examples from Dagoba, New Tree, and most notably, Chocolove (if you want to see the selection, it's tagged under "spice.") I tried to remember what I loved so much about the Chocolove ginger bar -- the dark chocolate was enlivened by the ginger's spice, sugar, and warmth. It was a warmth sensation, tempered by the earthy, semi-sweet chocolate. Chocolove just works with really great ingredients and makes a delicious chocolate, add-ins aside.

So the problems here were twofold: the chocolate was not that good -- stale, dry, dusty -- and the ginger was dead -- no chew, no spice to speak of, no warmth. It was like freeze-dried papaya or something. Tasteless. Not disgusting at all, just tasteless -- utterly boring. It's worth noting actually that I quit eating this bar halfway through and turned instead to my multi-pack of Kinder Buenos. I award this bar a C-.